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Denver Art Museum focuses on trend-setters

'Modern Masters: 20th Century Icons from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Exhibition' on display through June 8

By Rhema Zlaten For A&E Spotlight

Posted:
04/07/2014 10:43:12 PM MDT

The Transparent Simulacrum of the Feigned Image by Salvador Dali is among the works on display in Modern Masters: 20th Century Icons from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. (Images property of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.)

A revolutionary spirit and innovation drove the creativity of many modern era artists, a story unfolding at the Denver Art Museum.

"Modern Masters: 20th Century Icons from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Exhibition" displays the work of 40 trend-setting masters who created art from the late 19th century through the present, such as Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock. Dean Sobel, director of the Clyfford Still Museum, curated the show for the DAM.

"Sometimes considered radical or off the wall, the artwork presented in these exhibitions explores a time of great creativity," Sobel said.

Most of the pieces for the show are on loan from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y, a hub for donations from many astute art collectors from the last several decades.

Stefania Van Dyke, the DAM master teacher for the Modern Masters show, wanted to organize this collection of art to spark conversations between audience members about the purpose of modern art.

"We are also trying to get people to look at these pieces in a new way," Van Dyke said. "Some of them are familiar images, but some of the images are not as accessible to people. Some people may be suspicious of viewing these pieces as great works of art. It is completely fine to have those opinions, but we want to encourage people who may have those opinions to look at them a little more closely, to think about the people who created them, the tools they used, the context they were made in and how they were different than what came before."

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Abstract expressionists in the mid-1900s looked to household materials for inspiration, such as house paint and house paintbrushes. Next to the Jackson Pollock painting, for example, rests many of the household tools he used to create his works, revealing some of the context that inspired his canvas work.

"We wanted to tell the story of the evolution of modern art throughout the 20th century," Van Dyke said. "In a nut shell, we wanted to communicate the idea of innovation, and modern art being a series of innovation that breaks with tradition over the course of the decades. Artists go with their time and then respond to the technology and the materials around them with each era."

Robert Delaunay's colorful concentric works celebrate the advancements of engineering at the time, such as the construction of the Eiffel Tower, in a radiating fashion.

"He is depicting a time and an ideal of what was happening, and an excitement of what was happening in the world," Van Dyke said.

The show will also feature an audio tour.

"The show will be a delight for the senses. The exhibition starts out pretty dramatic and dark and then lightens up as they go through. We are getting people excited through a little bit of drama," Van Dyke said.

Sobel considers this exhibit an extraordinary opportunity to peek into the lives of modern art masters, such as Clyfford Still.

"It's a rare treat to be able to see the development of modern art and then go next door to the Clyfford Still Museum and explore the evolution of one artist in-depth."

Sobel curated the current show for the Clyfford Still Museum to offer a parallel experience to the Modern Masters show by recreating Clyfford Still's exhibition of his own work as it was presented at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1959. A ticket to the DAM show will also get audiences into the CSM show for an immersive modern art experience.

"There is something uncanny about seeing these paintings being exhibited from 60 years ago," Sobel said. "There is a sense about how art work lives on, and a look what we as a society still think is important. You are standing in the same place as people did in 1959 and wrestling with the meaning of the art. [Still] was the curator of the exhibition and he put the paintings in order. We are exactly re-creating that order. Artists see relationships in their work that people do not always s see on the surface level."

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